History/Museum

The EMC discipline got a formal start during WWII. There were efforts before that, but the war highlighted problems and stimulated development of a great many standards that addressed the problems.

It might appear a harmless but useless endeavor to uncover the roots of the discipline, if it were not for the fact that a lot of what is done today is not that different than back then, even though the technologies that drove the development of these forerunner specifications and standards were quite different than those today.

In short, very few people even within the discipline understand where requirements such as MIL-STD-461, RTCA/DO-160, CISPR 22 (or EN 55022) come from, and how they apply to the larger goal of achieving EMC at a higher level of equipment integration.

The Museum of EMC Antiquities is dedicated to shining a spotlight into these dark and dusty corners of forgotten history, and providing illumination that transforms the discipline from an arcane black art into an understandable, and applicable engineering discipline.

Note: The copy of NADC-EL-5515 available below is a typed copy of the original.  The original was found on microfiche and was somwhat illegible in parts. In support of the Electronic Industries Association G-46 (gov't EMC) panel, a McDonnell-Douglas St. Louis secretary working for an EMC manager in the late 1980s or early 1990s typed up this report from the original, and I proofed it and added figures copied from the original.  Any errors are my responsibility.  The numbers and figures, where errors are more likely to creep in, are not of significance at this time.  It is the philosophy behind picking the sensors, and the antenna-induced limits used at the time which are of true historical significance.  And the discussion of peak detection and broadband/narrowband would be critical, if anyone were still doing that.